Intersectional Exclusion

The indiginous women of Latin America are so diverse in terms of ethnicity and tradition, that they are really only bound together in their shared identity by systematic forms of marginalization. They are defined by the systematic exclusion from the state, and are therefore reliant on self-identification. Of that violence, definitional violence, where one is permitted or denied their identity as indigenous or otherwise, can be the most harmful. In the same way, the historical amnesia regarding the pre-colonial diversity of sexuality, is a loss and violence towards queer indigenous women. When there is no space to name a problem, the problem cannot be fixed. A number of Latin American scholars have tried to decolonize the history of sexuality in Latin America. Marc Rifkin (2011) argues that heterosexual patterns are a tool of colonization. He asks his audience to consider just when Indians became straight. Heterosexual vocabulary is as inappropriate a term as the gender binary is on indigenous commnuitities. The traditional male and female roles were used by some colonizers to impose control on the indigenous societies. Only after they laid that foundation could they impose the labels of heterosexuality and consequently, homosexuality. Especially in communities where the gender binary did not originally exist, such as the Muxes in Zapotec, contemporary American concepts of queerness can not be applied. Picq (2016) argues that many of the terms he finds are untranslatable, as they refer to a social fabric that has already been destroyed. These concepts of gender and sexuality then, may be lost, but rediscovering the sexual diversity of indigenous Latin America can provide a passage to resistance and healing.